So I went to visit a family member who was in the hospital with a couple of other people and since we drove we needed to find a parking spot. While looking for parking, there were a lot of sidewalks with parking meters and the price for the ones there happened to be 5 minutes for every 25 cents.

That was pretty darn expensive I thought as it was more than most parking meters even in the downtown core. Thinking how this was a hospital too a lot of people are probably in a vulnerable state of mind as they simply want to just find anything.

Sure enough though, if you just went a few blocks down there was actually free parking and prices that were more reasonable. I guess like always you pay for convenience and that just trying to look a little bit further to avoid those emotional purchases can go a long way.

I was watching this piece about how a lot of people believed that as a result of not having resources and upper class schools compared to some of their peers that they do not have an equal playing field in life when it comes to making a good living. Example, all the less fortunate will be forced to work as grocery store clerks and the others would go on to be say some kind of executive.

This is one of those issues where I am inclined to say where in many ways it’s true from a resource point of view such as if I have a computer to work with and the other doesn’t then obviously I am going to be more technically inclined. At the same time, I have to believe that as long as you learn basic skills like reading then you can easily learn things like how to use a computer afterwards if necessary.

It’s like an athlete I suppose. Even if one guy doesn’t necessarily have all these exercising equipment and weights compared to another person, just training the essentials properly can kind of put you on the same league if not better in terms of strength and endurance if it came down to a competition afterwards.

I mean, there are a ton of people with simply a high school education that earn a lot more financially compared to say a person with a bachelor degree. Like with that example it shows me that your income is more tied to how you apply your knowledge as oppose to what you learned necessarily. I always saw tying your income to your education is a little risky as you are kind of setting yourself up to expect certain things to just come to you as a result. If your income is tied to anything, it’s more about one’s choices in life I’d say.

I was told of an interesting scenario today where a person originally invested in a condo a few years back and just recently decided to sell it. Turns out, he was able to get almost one million dollars for it. As a result, he then decided to use that money to buy a house worth over one million dollars as it was almost like free money.

The person telling me the story thought that was kind of crazy as she believed if you were that fortunate to sell it for that price you should just find something decent for say $600,000 and then use the rest of the money for other purposes.

I guess a lot of people do this for smaller items as well. For example, let’s say you bought a piece of electronic equipment and for some reason it broke. The company then gave you back the original cost of the item and then some to compensate you for your time. Most people would be inclined to then use all that money to then buy something superior to what they had before as oppose to wanting to save the extra money and get something of an equal value like before.

While in many ways it is simply a preference, I think it is kind of a bad habit that you have to teach yourself not to do. I know for myself I usually perceive free money or ones gained from investments as funds designated to help you earn more money as this is essentially your pool of funds to help further flex your financial stability. Therefore, to me it is almost invisible in regards to spending it as a regular fund.

Like in the case of the condo scenario what I would have done would be say if I originally invested $600,000 then for the house my consideration to buy it would be that $600,000 plus factoring my existing stream of income and savings. The other $400,000 I would try to think of what else I could do with it such as maybe trying to find another good deal on a condo to hopefully repeat the cycle. I personally think it is better then just spending it all.

Tonight I am attending a family gathering for my grandmother’s birthday party. As usually when it comes to birthdays everyone tries to find the person something that they would like. My mom decided to give her $100 from that climate action dividend cheque that people here in BC received not too long ago.

The funny thing is some people thought that is kind of weird as they believed that it almost fell along the lines of giving someone a present that you received from someone else which you have no use or interest in. I was thinking to myself how it’s just money and so it doesn’t really matter too much.

I often see people give away things that they have no use for as a way to not only save money but at the same time hoping that the new owner will find better use of it. While I have never been the recipient or provider using this method, I can’t see how people can be labeled as being say “cheap” for doing it if they genuinely thought you would like it.

Speaking for myself, in some strange ways too knowing that they didn’t have to spend much money on gifts for you is kind of a relief as I personally don’t like it when people think things like gifts are some kind of financial obligation.

I was talking to a person who mentioned that he recently moved from a different province. Instead of finding a job in his field of expertise, he is taking the risk and doing a job in a role that is a on the call basis as it dealt with special events that only occurred depending on situations such as entertainment productions that come to town.

First thing that came into my mind was how he planned to survive financially as that seemed like a rather unstable situation for an adult. He told me that it didn’t really matter to him as he is still getting by and that he will worry about the money part later as he expects that to come naturally from being persistent and doing something he enjoyed.

That’s kind of tricky I thought as that mentality is fantastic if you are say starting some kind of venture and you know that you have X amount funds to live on to do so. If it comes to a situation of basic survival though, I’d tend to lean towards not doing so unless you have some kind of nest in place.

It’s good to take risks as that is usually necessary to achieve better rewards, but at the same time this is one of those money situations where you shouldn’t just take risks but rather calculated risks I’d say.